> State government documents put the final price tag at $958,600,000 for the property, building construction and equipment. The cost for the equipment alone is close to $300 million.
What a staggering number. How does our government get away with wasting so much money without any accountability?
> any alternative option is crushed with voter suppression
With early voting, free or very cheap ID for poor people, mail in ballots, and literally a year or more to confirm one’s voter registration, voter suppression is a ridiculous excuse. If people cared about voting, they would do it. I honestly don’t want people voting that can’t be bothered to take the responsibility seriously enough that they allow themselves to be “suppressed.” More voters isn’t the answer: more voters that care about fiscal responsibility is the answer. Many voters don’t care one bit about waste because those voters aren’t paying very much in the taxes that are getting wasted. They want “someone else” to pay. Many voters vote for the “stuff” they can get for themselves.
Totally agree we need to fix these issues with lines and ID requirements. But Texas and California are very different.
California has mail-in so I do think something is going on where people don't know about the vote by mail. You can even just get your ballot by mail and drop it off at a polling place or mailbox day of if you want to decide late.
And gerrymandering is definitely a huge issue, but not the whole issue. You can't gerrymander the Senate, for example, but it is still Republican-controlled.
It does seem like there are still extreme get-out-the-vote issues beyond the (totally unacceptable) vote suppression. Turnout is still unbelievably low.
It's hard to follow what's actually happening, but it doesn't seem like it's wasted at all. It's just going slower than expected. The factory is in use and has promised to meet its hiring obligation on time. It sounds like they made a bet on its value and came up a bit short. This sort of thing actually happens pretty frequently and it's fine because we don't have all our eggs in one basket. No different than buying stocks, these investment funds pay for a lot of projects knowing that some will bust and some will do well enough to cover the losses.
Honestly, the way the deal is structured, it encourages all kinds of minor borderline graft along the way with every two-bit local politician and community organization with their finger in the pie. No accountability is a feature not a bug.
Contrast that with the aborted Amazon deal. The deal was fairly straightforward, but but it was simply coordinated between Amazon and the governor's office. They shot themselves in the foot by not playing with every local assemblymen and community boards -- not that any of them would have had any useful input.
Because with every election we increase its power and size. Turns out when you pay the bill with someone else’s money, you won’t be so concerned with how much it costs.
What a staggering number. How does our government get away with wasting so much money without any accountability?